Joseph Healy’s Legacy Lives on

By Courtney Jolley | Photos courtesy of the Healy family and Gerard Ng, '99July 23, 2012

Longtime Loyola administrator Joseph Healy (above) became a close friend to Gerard Ng, '99, while Ng was studying at Loyola.

Almost 20 years ago Gerard Ng, a teenager in Singapore, waited anxiously for his father, John, to return from the United States, where he was scouting American colleges for Gerard. John spent some time on the West Coast, checking out universities in Portland and San Francisco, before heading east. His search ended in Baltimore, at Loyola, in the office of Joseph Healy, a longtime University administrator who had helped to found the international programs office.

“My father and Joe got along very well, and as soon as he came back, he said ‘You’re going to Loyola,’” said Ng, who graduated in 1999 with a communication degree.

As a student, Ng lived with the Healy family, and as a graduate, he stayed in close contact.

Healy soon became much more than an academic advisor for Ng. “In those days, all of Loyola’s international students had host families, and because I was Loyola’s first and only student from Singapore, Joe and his wife, Melody, decided to host me,” said Ng. “I spent three-and-a-half years living with them. The Healys and their children were like my family. I learned so much from them, things that are so hard to teach, things that really enriched me as a person.”

When Healy lost a long fight with cancer in 2009, Ng, who had returned to Singapore after graduation but continued to spend time with the Healys whenever they were in Asia or he was in the States, was devastated. “I knew it was coming, but I was still very upset,” said Ng, who now works for his family’s business, Asuka Colour Inc., which manufactures the paint color cards and fans found at retailers such as Home Depot and Lowe’s. “Then I learned about the scholarship.”

After Healy’s death, his family knew just how to honor his memory, by creating a scholarship to provide support for students participating in Loyola’s international study programs—a group that now attracts more than 60 percent of Loyola’s undergraduate population, not counting students like Ng who come to Loyola from other countries.
Healy’s daughter Candra, ’80, M.A. ’09, special assistant to the dean of the School of Education, has played a key role in attracting support for the Joseph M. Healy Memorial Scholarship Fund.

“My father believed it was significant for Loyola students to have this global experience of study abroad and, above all, he wanted to do whatever he could to fulfill this dream for as many students as possible,” she said. “His legacy lives on through the lives of the thousands of students who enjoy the study abroad experience—a significant one in collegial life here at Loyola—and also in those from overseas who come to Loyola each year to study on the Evergreen campus.”

Ng’s contribution helped push the fund over the $100,000 goal.

“I’ve always been an advocate of international study,” said Ng. “For any student, going abroad offers experiences that just can’t be taught in the classroom, an opportunity to see the world through new eyes that will benefit them for the rest of their lives. Other alumni who have had overseas study experiences will understand what I mean. And I hope that this will spur them to contribute to the Healy Scholarship to provide future students an opportunity to study and live life abroad.”

To learn more about the Joseph M. Healy Memorial Scholarship Fund or to make a contribution, please contact Dena Ebert at Dmebert@loyola.edu or 410-617-2686.